Conversational Paradigm LO5979

Nesta99@aol.com
Sun, 3 Mar 1996 20:48:06 -0500

Replying to LO5900 --

Summary:
== taking responsibility for creating new language
== given the premise: "the phrase LO is, at present, undistinguished", here's
a start at distinguishing the phrase

snipping Julie's mail here and there...
>I have had a similar view on language (in some ways my own
>perspective on language goes back to the notion from John 1 - in
>the beginning was the word!!) I can see words and language
>creating and sustaining our reality... and I love to engage with new
>words .. I think it was Joel Barker who said something on the lines
>that as we use new words for things we are signalling that it is a
>new paradigm (may have been in paradigm pioneers but I'm not sure)

Hmmmm... I think I'll get a hold of his book now.

>The issue for me then becomes how people recieve and understand the
>new word - some time back we had a lengthy conversation on the
>list about Jargon and the way people react to new words...

This is a VERY important point to me. And something to be responsible
for. My own reaction to the word "reengineering" was disgust the first
time I hard it. How dare someone just repackage what I was doing with a
different name. That cost me getting the distinction between
reengineering and process improvement... an important distinction that now
I draw for my clients continually. I know that for me I couldn't stand
the fact that this could be something distinct from what I already knew.
As a rule, what we do as humans is to put something new sounding into what
we already know, and when we can't, we get upset.

For example, ML King was called a communist by many, and he upset many by
his actions at the time. He didn't FIT into already existing knowledge of
how Black men/preachers/US citizens should act. And yet... that didn't
stop him. He took responsibility for the upset he created, and I think we
might do so also if and as it occurs.

>... and does everybody understand the same thing when they use the
>word re-engineering... or TQ....... have people appropriated the
>language without the new ways of thinking ... how do we integrate
>and enculturise language...

Oh yes. Perhaps we integrate it and enculturise it by using it. Also,
maybe the problem isn't understanding, but getting the distinction the
word is designed to evoke. That's saying it in a little different way.

>Another thing which your posting prompted for me is a thought I have
>been having for some time now... what does LO evoke for people...
>I came to it through whole systems and transformation and so it is
>part of that deal for me ... does how we come to it effect what it
>means for us?? Smetimes I hear people talk about it and it sound
>like something else.. effective training .. or investing in people
>.... most of the time I hear the whole system thinking and new
>sciences underpinning things ... but is that because I read the
>ones which appeal to my own thinking??

I suggest that the term LO is now undistinguished from the various other
terms that to me also sound like "something else." Given that this is the
LO mail-list, maybe we could start by distinguishing a LO.

>Are you going to start us off - any new language in mind??

I'll start by saying what it's NOT.

A LO is not:
-- an ideal state for corporations to reach
-- a level that companies get to before becoming perfect
-- an attirbute limited to certain companies, it's true for all companies at
some time or another
-- an external judgment, like "a Balridge winning company"
-- a state in which every single person in the company is using the five
disciplines

OK, who would like to go next? Any additions/subtractions/modifications?

Francis

-- 

Nesta99@aol.com

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>